Deliverance Dogs

Some Sunday Fun… 🐎🐕🤘 Back in Alfred’s early years when his brother was a horse. We had a lot of fun doing silly stuff like this ❤️

Backwards Heelwork 🙃

#trainhardfighteasy It can be quite challenging when your dog has learnt all the behaviours it will ever need to for your sport. The training game then becomes more about maintaining rather than teaching. It’s nice to try and keep it fresh and give the dog different challenges where you can to keep training varied and interesting. The other day I was doing some heel work training with Del and figured we would have a little play with backwards heel work. Just messing around here, nothing too serious. But we enjoyed ourselves for sure and worked this out together ❤️😊🐕

D

Absolutely gutted. T in Protection. Not avoidance, some confusion about control. My foundation of too much control bites me in the arse once again….. Del does me proud every time I step onto the field with her. She tries her heart out and that is all I can ask for. The beginning of the round was really great. Everything I could have hoped for. For the first time she showed the new re trained behaviour in the hide instead of reverting to foundation on the field as she has previously. But then when I asked her to out after re attack she came straight back to me. Many people have had problems with the out on the short work helper, and although I didn’t plan to give extra strength in the command maybe I did sub consciously…?? But any way we had a mis understanding and now it is all over. Absolutely gutted….but it is what it is 🤷‍♀️ These things only make me more determined and we will come back stronger for sure….. 💪🔥😎

Having a conversation with your dog in training….

Having a conversation with your dog in training… what does that look like? I want my dogs to regard my communication in training. I want to have more tools at my disposal than clicking, treating and silence… The more information I can give the dog the easier it is to develop the behaviours that I want with confidence, joy and understanding. I can keep the dog confident in the behaviour without being reliant on only reward to do this for me. As my mentor Tuukka Nikola always reminds me… it is important to be able to live in the gray.. 🤔 Now this video is by no means perfect and for sure is riddled with errors. Little man has only started learning to work without the hand for guidance this very week. He is still developing understanding of the exact position I want him to be in. We are nowhere near there yet… BUT the thing I really like about it and the reason I am sharing is that you can see we are able to have a ‘conversation’ whilst taking this leap from hand to no hand. The dog regards my verbal guidance and has clear understanding of when he is correct and when he needs to try to adjust. This to me is an invaluable tool that I could not be without in my training these days 😃

Play is so so important. I am working on it and developing it all the time…. but by far the most important part is having fun together. Look at Little Man go 😎🔥💪

I am loving this snazzy little feet up down we are building. It is a little OTT and exuberant at the moment…but effort and attitude first and then we can reign it in a little 😜 My Kali Bear is really starting to love her obedience these days. I am enjoying training her so much ❤️❤️❤️

FMBB Selection Trial didn’t go our way yesterday 🤷‍♀️ That’s Dog Sports for you!! We gave some strong performances that I am proud of….with some glaring errors thrown into the mix too 😬 For example the Dumbell work shown here. Really pleased and proud of our work….and then….. 😬😬😬😬 over the A-frame, back over the hurdle 🤷‍♀️🤔…whoops!! We where both a bit confused but what a good girl coming back into a lovely present for me anyway ⭐️ It is what it is!! Sh*t happens. They’re not machines and neither are we. I have not had this particular problem before - but it clearly highlights a hole in my training. So - 6th place and no place on the team this year for us… Am I disappointed? ….yes Can I see a silver lining… for sure 😏 Del and I have had a great 2023 and my main focus has most certainly been on her with the other dogs taking a bit of a back seat. But now without the FMBB to train for I am going to give Del a few easy months and prioritise training the youngsters 💪 if I don’t get on with training them there will be no future… 💪😊🤟 Congratulations to the 5 that made the team. Fantastic Dogs and Handlers so the team we are sending to the FMBB will be a strong one for sure. Best of luck in Italy guys. Go smash it and have a great time 👊🔥😎

This little man is just too cool for school 😎🤟 We just always have so much fun together no matter what we’re doing 😍

Old retired boy got to have a little play today…just for fun 😊 It made him so happy. He has been walking around with a strut ever since ❤️🥰❤️🥰

Caroline is training for DogSportUk and Working Trials. We are working on building nice Heelwork…and it’s coming… 😊 Caroline would be the first to admit that she doesn’t love training heelwork, but would still like to create a nice picture in this excersize. We’ve been building foundations and trying to mix it up and keep it fun…and now it’s really coming. And with the breakthroughs fun and joy in the excersize is coming too 😁👊💪 Well done Caroline and Molly. I’m super proud of you guys it’s looking really nice 🔥 We all have our own excersizes that are not our favourite to train. My advice is that these are the excersizes we need to focus on the most. That doesn’t always necessarily mean training, sometimes reflecting is needed too. But if we tackle these head on then progress is made. Then we feel a sense of achievement and start to really enjoy training the excersize. For me this excersize is Tracking! I decided some time back that it had to be my No.1 focus. The first thing that happened is that I did it a lot, then I started to get breakthroughs, these made me happy and proud and I am now really enjoying my tracking training (laying the tracks not so much but that is another thing..!)

Here is Mary with her gorgeous Goldie training the Working Trials Scale jump during my workshop held at Avon Working Dog Training Society on Sunday. I really like to teach dogs to have a good technique using an IGP style A frame or ramps before transitioning them on to the real thing. Then they have a good understanding of the technique required before being faced with the ‘wall’. I start as easy as possible with the equipment I have in order to build confidence in the dog first. Then slowly in as many stages as possible increase the angle of the ramp until we are left with the scale. Mary had already done a lot of work on this so we where looking at that transitioning phase between ramp and wall. I would always take the ramp from the side the dog is sent from first. This means they can scale the wall for the first time with an easier landing on the other side. What a great job these guys did 👊🔥❤️

I am SOOO PROUD of this pair 🤗❤️ Shelley came to me with Ilana originally to look at dog reactivity. After tackling this and coming on leaps and bounds we decided to have a play with Competitive Obedience 😍 Shelley is a natural and has taken to this training like a duck to water. Just look at the beautiful movement we are already getting from this Novice pair. The future is bright me thinks 🌟 It is so rewarding when you start really training your dog for some kind of sport. It increases the bond more than you can imagine and you develop a whole new level of communication together. It also gives the dog purpose and an outlet. This in turn also makes any ‘problem’ behaviour easier to tackle. A dog who is unable to act on its genetical drive will seek other activities (often seen as ‘problem behaviours’ in our eyes). If we give them an outlet for these drives there is less need to look in the environment for fulfilment… 😉 it doesn’t magically ‘fix’ everything…but it sure does help. And anyway why wouldn’t we want to spend our time connecting with our dog and playing fun games together ⭐️⭐️⭐️

JUMP JUMP 👊🔥💪

Oh Kali Bear. I am so very pleased with you and the development you are making. Stepping it up last week in both Tracking and Obedience. And Protection is to come this week 👊🤞 I was over the moon with this track on Sunday. She is actually starting to work CALMLY!!!! I have been working towards this for a long time and we are starting to see glimmers of it. She is quite new to having food pots on her track and can struggle to go down. But I don’t mind that at all at this stage and am happy to help 🤗 it is all about teamwork and co-operation between the pair of us. One of the most important things I have learnt in regards to Tracking is just how very important it is for me to regulate and control my own energy. If I want my dog to be calm on the track then I had better set the mood by being calm myself. I take this very seriously these days and really go to a proper ‘zen’ type space when I am tracking my dogs. Has taken a while for me to gain this kind of regulation over my own system but gosh does it make a massive difference to the dogs.

Del being Del 🤷‍♀️

My old boy developing his Scentwork Skills. I only ever taught this to him as something for him to do as he retired from Working Trials Competitions. He enjoys it and is very pleased to still have a little job to do sometimes. Scentwork is such a good retirement hobby for many dogs that are used to working. They still get to train and work but without putting much stress on the body. Alfred enjoys his little dabble. #scentwork #scentworktraining #scentdog #dogtraining #australianshepherd #thenoseknows

Bart searching for his kong ❤️ This is totally motivational and hasn’t been formed into a proper ‘search’ yet. Motivation is everything!!! I love the moment where he air scents it, stops, turns back and works really methodically to source. Good little Lord ❤️🔥👊

Kevin and Kali expressing there own ideas of Valentines love ❤️ I bite your face, you smack mine…boy they are cute 🥰 😍

Little Bart helping me to give a demo on relationship, drive and energy in training. The point of this video isn’t anything technical…the point is the vibe between us. We are communicating and having a 2 way conversation. Most importantly we are having FUN and keeping energy and drive in our training. Training should always be FUN!!!! Other points to note are that in play I am not too strong…I am allowing him to pull me around in such a way that he feels like the strong one. This develops confidence. Good little Lord Bartholomew…he is a little dude 😎🐕

Kevin is having fun making friends with his future IGP helper Zip Team Dog Training with Tuukka Nikola ❤️🔥